Which Causes of Moral Beliefs Matter?

Abstract

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Speciesism and tribalism: embarrassing origins

“…Contra evolutionary debunkers of all stripes, you are confident that it pushes our moral judgments in the right direction. Or maybe you are generally more impressed by debunking arguments based on proximal processes than you are by debunking arguments based on distal processes such as evolution (O'Neill, 2015). In either case, you were probably unmoved by the previous argument.…”

A Bayesian analysis of debunking arguments in ethics

“…Street (2006) thinks this epistemic conclusion only holds if we assume that the moral facts are mind-independent -if you agree with her, then you can see this paper as working out the Bayesian picture on this assumption. 4 For other work using Bayesianism to analyse debunking, see Brosnan (2011), Goldman (2016O'Neill (2015), who cites Roush's (2007) truth-tracking approach. Philosophers might be reluctant to apply a probabilistic Bayesian framework to debunking because they see moral truths as necessary truths.…”

On the Correlation Between Moral Belief and Motivation

“…It is surely an over-reaction for O'Neill ([26], p.1071) to suggest that we should reduce our confidence in moral beliefs that rely on sympathy or disgust, due to their distorting influence. After all, convincing arguments can also lead us astray if they happen to be mistaken, but surely we should not reduce our confidence in moral beliefs that are based on convincing arguments.…”